[news.eclipse.newcomer] Cannot Load Visual Editor

[Hal Vaughan <hal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've asked this on the eclipse.tools.ve group, but in my experience, answers
there are very slow, and I *have* to get the VE up and running ASAP.  I am
blocked in all my work until it's back online, so I need a solution quickly
or I have to find another IDE.  I'm not threatening, it's just gotten to
where I have to get it working ASAP or switch to something with a VE that I
can get working.  Any help is appreciated!

I'm using Ubuntu Linux, Edgy upgraded from Dapper.  I've installed Eclipse
3.2.1 from eclipse.org instead of using apt.  I'm using Java 1.4.2 from
Sun, not any 3rd party version.

I had been using Eclipse 3.2 and I started running in to this problem, so I
created a clean install of 3.2.1, updated it, added the VE, made sure that
was updated as well, and I still have the same problem.

I've also tried installing Eclipse with apt-get.  It's in a different
directory, so I have two different versions (and I've deleted /~/.eclipse
between tests).  It doesn't do any good and I cannot install needed updates
because my window manager won't let me log in as root, I can't run Eclipse
from the console in X, as root, and have it open a window when X is run
under my own username.  In other words, I get this problem with completely
different install and even with the newer Java 6 that I just installed.

Whenever I open an existing class or create a new one to edit in the VE, I
get a requestor telling me that it can't open the file in the VE and I
always get a Null Pointer Exception.  There's no stack trace, just one
window telling me it couldn't open the file in the VE and that it's a NPE.

I've had a bit of trouble Googling for this.  Any ideas what it is?  I would
think it's related to something in my system, since it used to work fine in
3.2, then started having problems (with no changes to Eclipse), then also
had the same problem in 3.2.1.

Any ideas?

Thanks!